The
lack of industrialization invalidated another point under
Marxism. The Marxist theory stated that "the work of
the proletarians has lost all individual character ...
[and] becomes an appendage of the machine." One of
the reasons for revolting would be because workers only
had collective value and power through the work they
provide, worth even less than machines. One worker could
replace another, they were both equal and the same. It is
horrors like absence of job security, lack of protection
against dangerous machines, long work hours (usually over
seventy hours a week), and bare subsistence income (just
to name a few) which forces the workers to revolt.
Conditions were so poor that the life expectancy of the
urban industrial worker was thirteen years below those of
non-industrialized areas. Unindustrialized, China did not
have this problem. Since the horrors of industry were
known by relatively few, it made no impact in the rest of
China. It simply didn't apply to the peasants. The far
majority of the Chinese were farmers who retained
individuality both in themselves and their products.
Since most Chinese families owned their own plot of land,
they did not simply become replaced or fired for an
arbitrary reason. Whether due to injury or a depression
in the economy, the farmers still held some control.
Peasant farmers rarely became discontent for the same
reasons the proletariat does. At anytime, the farmers
could see the products of their hard work, take what they
made, and do as they wish with it That was something the
proletariat Marx had in mind could not do. The total
absence of direct power within a class which
fundamentally holds all the real power is an important
catalyst in a revolution. The injustice would have to be
corrected. This situation was lacking in a country like
China where the proletariat contributed to only a small
percentage of the total population.

China
was too different from the European industrial world of
Marx to apply completely to The Communist Manifesto. Its
large peasant population, and its small class of
proletariat differed greatly from the industrial slums
Marx was used to. Much of the Chinese not only owned the
means of production, but was also far from being the
faceless worker Marx described. Though the lack of safety
regulations and enforcement was appalling, its effects
rarely reached the peasant masses which made up most of
China.